One morning, having loaded their guns for a hunt, Kenton and two companions were standing in the gate of Fort Boone, when two men, who were driving in some horses from a near-by field, were fired upon by Indians.  They fled toward the fort, the Indians after them, and one of them was overtaken and killed and was being scalped, when Kenton and his companions ran up, killed one of the Indians and pursued the others to the edge of the clearing.  Boone, meanwhile, had heard the firing, and came hurrying out with reinforcements, only, a moment later, to be cut off from the fort by a strong body of savages.  There was nothing to do but to cut their way back through them, and in the charge, Boone received a ball through the leg, breaking the bone.  As he fell, the Indian leader raised his tomahawk to kill him, but Kenton, seeing his comrade’s peril, shot the Indian through the heart, and succeeded in dragging Boone inside the fort.

During the Dunmore war, Kenton ranged the Indian country as a spy, carrying his life in his hand, and accompanied George Rogers Clark on his famous Illinois campaign.  A short time later, with one or two others, he started on an expedition to run off some horses from the Miami villages, and had nearly succeeded, when he was captured.  The Indians hated him more bitterly than they hated Boone himself, and they prepared to enjoy themselves at his expense.  They bound him to a wild horse and chased the horse through the forest until their captive’s face was torn and bleeding from the lashing of the branches; they staked him down at night so that he could not move hand or foot, and when they reached their town, the whole population turned out to make him run the gauntlet.  The Indians formed in a double line, about six feet apart, each armed with a heavy club, and Kenton was forced to run between them.  He had not gone far when he saw ahead of him an Indian with drawn knife, prepared to plunge it into him as he passed.  By a mighty effort, he broke through the line, but was soon recaptured, lashed with whips, pelted with stones, branded with red-hot irons, and condemned to be burnt at the stake.

But before killing him, the Indians concluded to lend him to other towns to have some sport with, so he was taken from town to town, compelled to run the gauntlet at each one, and subjected to a variegated list of tortures.  Three or four times, he was tied to a stake for the final execution, but each time the Indians decided to wait a while longer.  Finally, an Englishman got the Indians to consent to send Kenton for a visit to Detroit, and he spent the winter there.  Then, with two other captives, and with the help of a kind-hearted Irish woman, he managed to escape, and made his way back to Kentucky—­over four hundred miles through the Indian country, narrowly escaping death a hundred times—­in thirty-three days.